False Light
by ExpositionFairy
Summary: Jalen has never heard the User idiom "beware of Greeks bearing gifts". [MAJOR SPOILERS for Tron: Evolution, references to events in Tron: Betrayal]


_Then it comes to be that the soothing light at the end of your tunnel _

_is just a freight train comin' your way..._

* * *

_—len… jalen! _

_hey big guy can you hear me? _

_come on, now, say something_

Jalen comes back online slowly, in stages, confused and still half-blinded from the overload. His circuitry feels raw, all sensory data both too intense and at the same time fuzzy with static, and he scrabbles to find purchase within himself. He opens his eyes, and eventually the image of the System Administrator resolves itself from the too-bright bloom, expression a mixture of concern and faint amusement. "Clu…?"

"_There_ you are," Clu says with a smile. "You had me worried, there, for a second."

"…what…happened?" Jalen manages, as Clu helps him pull himself up to a sitting position. He's on the floor in the Admin's office, and every time he tries to call up the memory of how he got there it eludes him.

"You suffered a hell of a hard reboot, friend." Clu explains, his smile turning apologetic and a little rueful. "My fault. I should've known you wouldn't be used to that kind of disc upgrade. How do you feel?"

Jalen closes his eyes for a moment, brow furrowing as he takes stock. The disorientation and the feeling of sensory overload are starting to fade, leaving behind a strange new clarity in their wake. Nothing feels _different_, exactly, not at the surface level…and yet at the same time _everything_ feels different in a way Jalen can't quite explain. He's aware of the world around him in the intuitive way his kind tend to process data, but now that awareness seems deeper and somehow less abstract.

"…good," Jalen answers at last, opening his eyes and trying out a hesitant smile. "I feel good."

"Excellent!" Clu stands, offering Jalen a hand up, and Jalen accepts. "Lots to do, now. Too much, as always. But now that I've got your help, I think we can really start to get this System into fighting shape, don't you?"

"Of course," Jalen agrees, his smile brightening for a moment, only for it to turn into a frown as Clu's words remind him of something. "Ah…this upgrade won't give me an unfair advantage in the Games, will it…?" he inquires anxiously.

Clu laughs. "No, no, nothing like that. It'll enhance your processing speed, sure, but not on the level of _cheating_. Besides, now that you've achieved Champion status you'll be going up against some _really_ tough opponents. You'll need all your wits about you and then some."

_Tron_, Jalen thinks, and a little thrill rushes through him at the thought. He looks to Clu again, eyes bright, expression solemn. "Thank you, Administrator. For giving me this opportunity, this honor. You don't know what it means to me…to _all _of us."

Clu smiles again, reaching out to clasp Jalen's shoulder firmly. "We're going to accomplish great things together, you and I," he says, and Jalen can't help but smile back.

* * *

For the remainder of the millicycle Jalen wanders through Tron City, taking everything in as he adjusts to the strange same-but-different sensations afforded him by the disc upgrade. He wonders if the odd new concreteness of the data he receives is closer to how Basics see the world, and smiles faintly at the thought. Perhaps he truly _can_ be a bridge between the two societies now. The idea fills him with a hope so great it's nearly euphoric.

As he wanders toward the Solar Sailer station he begins to become dimly aware of a sound in the back of his mind; a strange, warbling, distorted keening like whalesong, dim at first but intensifying and then fading in great looping cycles, felt more than heard. It carries with it that same sense of familiar-but-not and Jalen pauses in the middle of the street, brow furrowing, eyes closed, head tilting to one side as he tries to shut out all other data and _listen_…

When it hits him, the shock of the realization is so great it nearly sends Jalen into another hard reboot. He stands rooted rigid to the spot, eyes open wide and his expression changing from puzzlement to one of disbelief edging slowly into dawning joy, earning him more than a few raised eyebrows from passerby.

The Sea. The Sea, black and dead and silent for cycles now. _He can hear the Sea again._

He breaks into a run, laughing, hardly daring to believe. The need to return to Arjia and speak to Radia, to share all of this with her, is nearly overwhelming. She's been so worried for so long, and Jalen longs desperately to see her beautiful face alive and alight with hope once more.

_Maybe we're going to be okay after all!_

He stops to catch his breath at an ETC panel just outside the Solar Sailer terminal, and the speed and intensity at which the energy floods into him makes him stiffen and gasp. For a moment his circuits feel as if they're on fire and he cries out, vision going white.

After a few moments the pain fades, leaving Jalen feeling as refreshed and restored as he always does after an energy boost, and Jalen shakes off the strange fit as merely another side-effect of the disc upgrade—hopefully not a permanent one. He'll have to mention it to Clu the next time they speak. A short time later and Jalen is on the next Sailer to Arjia, the Sea still trilling and whispering in the back of his mind.

Below the terminal, the ETC panel remains dark and dead, jagged hairline fissures spiderwebbing out into the wall around it, but Jalen never sees.

* * *

"Jalen!"

He's back in Tron City, on his way to the Arena to train, when he hears an unmistakable voice hailing him from behind. He turns to see Tron crossing the avenue, hand raised in greeting, with that easy, good-natured smile he's so well-known for among Basic and ISO alike. Jalen answers the smile with one of his own and wills himself not to blush.

"Greetings, Program," he answers, bowing slightly.

Tron laughs a little, shaking his head. "There's no need for that, Jalen. We're not in a match. Yet, anyway."

"I know," Jalen answers, grateful he's managed not to stammer. "…but I won't lie and say I'm not looking forward to it."

"I'm rather looking forward to it myself," Tron agrees with a grin. "You're on your way to train? I've got business over that way myself, I'll walk with you."

Jalen's about to accept Tron's offer when a sudden bolt of fear strikes him, spreading through his circuits like icy (_black_) water and making him recoil and take a halting step backward. Within him the sea's warbling Doppler song pitches up to a wail and irrationally all Jalen can think is that he must get away from Tron, must not allow the Security Program to touch him.

"A-actually I just…remembered…I need to go back to Arjia, there…I'd forgotten, there's something else I really need to get done…"

Tron blinks, head tilting at Jalen in confusion. "Is everything all right, Jalen…?"

"No, no!" Jalen blurts, holding his hands out before him in a gesture that's half reassurance and half warding-off, and then he realizes how that must sound. " …I mean yes! Everything's fine, I just…I'm sorry, I really have to go." He turns on his heel before he can say any more, hurrying away in a direction tangential to the way he came and not stopping or looking back until at last the voice of the Sea dies back down to a moaning whisper, assuring Jalen that he's safe…for now.

When he's sure he's alone, Jalen slumps against a nearby wall and stays there for a good ten microcycles, trying to put his thoughts back in some sort of rational order. His reaction back there had made no sense whatsoever. Tron was one of the _good_ ones. He worked to protect all programs, and was as friendly towards Jalen and his people as he was to his fellow Basics. So _why_…?

_It's just nerves_, Jalen tells himself. _You'll be competing against Tron in the Arena soon, the true Champion of the Grid…the Grid that still doesn't know how it feels about __**you**__ as a champion. You just had a little panic attack, that's all. Calm down, Jalen._

Eventually, Jalen does.

* * *

_What in blazes was _THAT_ all about?_

For a while Tron stares after Jalen, frowning deeply. The sudden about-face in behavior had seemed incredibly out-of-character for the usually open, earnest ISO, and he doesn't like it. For a moment Jalen had looked _terrified_—had he thought Tron was going to draw on him and attack him in the middle of the square? More to the point, beneath the terror there had been a strange, secretive sort of expression…and his eyes, something in his eyes…

Every instinct that Alan-One gifted to Tron when he created him is insisting that something is wrong, wrong, wrong, and over the countless cycles Tron has learned always to trust his instincts. He starts across the square in the direction Jalen had run off in, meaning to follow him.

"Hey, Tron! Glad I caught you!"

Tron turns to see Clu, hailing him from the corner the way he'd hailed Jalen, and he sighs briefly in frustration. There's too much work to be done on the Grid, these days, and Clu always needs him for something.

He promises himself he'll get back to Jalen later.

* * *

[ROUND EIGHT: COMBATANT JALEN , VICTORY]

It's been a long round, this time, and Jalen feels strangely exhausted. Little waves of pain shiver through his circuits at random intervals, stabbing into his joints like daggers, but he barely notices, still high from the elation of having won yet another round. The roars of the crowd wash over him like liquid energy.

His opponent Bethke is still lying dazed on the floor, turning onto her back with a groan and struggling to get to her feet. Jalen smiles and goes to her, offering his hand. "Well played, Program."

Bethke smiles tiredly in return. "Thanks…guess it's true what I heard about you." She reaches to take his hand.

And freezes.

_Crack…_

The floor of Platform Two suddenly creaks ominously beneath them, and when Jalen looks down at first he can't comprehend what's going on. Great cracks are spreading across the transparent surface, zigzagging out from beneath his feet in jagged lightning-bolt spikes that do not resemble in the least the orderly fractal patterns in which things usually break on the Grid. Tiny flashes of light chase along them, a sickly yellow-green, barely visible.

"What…" Jalen starts stupidly, looking back up at Bethke, who has dropped her hand and is scrambling madly backwards along the fracturing floor, staring at him with an expression of naked terror. Not at the floor, at _him_.

He leaps for her, trying to catch her up and get them both to the safety of the central pod, but the pain suddenly flares to violent life throughout Jalen, seizing and crippling him, and it's too late. The cracks race up the far wall and then the entire platform shears away from its moorings, shattering as it crashes toward the arena floor below.

The last things Jalen knows are the screams of the audience and the shrieking of the Sea in his mind as he falls.

* * *

_hey _

_hey big guy can you hear me? _

_come on, say something_

Clu's voice, cutting through the pain.

Jalen manages to open one eye—the other refuses to work—to see Clu hunkered down beside him, arms folded on top of his knees and watching him with that same expression of slightly amused concern he remembers from before. He's lying facedown on the empty Arena floor, surrounded by the debris of the shattered Disc Wars platform. Every sensor is glitching, and his entire body pulses with agony. He wonders why he isn't derezzed.

Clu sees Jalen's eye roll toward him, and his smile widens. "There you are," he says, another echo from a similar scene, what seems a thousand cycles ago. "You're not looking so good, friend."

"…please…" Jalen manages to rasp, and his voice burns like acid in his throat. "…please…help…"

"Shhhh," Clu soothes. "Don't worry. I'll fix it. I'll fix everything." One broad gloved hand reaches over Jalen, settling onto his disc.

Jalen screams, and the Sea screams with him in triumph.

* * *

A/N: Alas, poor Jalen. The creative team behind _Tron: Evolution_ couldn't even be arsed to give him a character design. My characterization of him here is mostly extrapolated from his voice-diary clips on the Abraxas Shard extras (the only time he ever actually properly appears as a character, they can be heard starting at the 12:04 mark on this T:E Let's Play: watch?v=tz7-Jp_5ads), in which he is something of an adorable derp who fanboys briefly over Tron and makes very poor decisions regarding his personal safety ("here, sir, have my brain on a plate!"). Lyrics quoted are from "No Leaf Clover" by Metallica.


End file.
